I finally did it last week. I dropped in at what is now the nearest CrossFit box to my home, Four Rivers CrossFit in Fruitland, ID. I’ll admit, I didn’t plan to do it this way. My whole plan had been to go to Arbor when I had to go into Boise for work, but I made a mistake when I reserved my hotel. I chose the wrong one. Instead of being less than 5 minutes from Arbor, I was now all the way across town. And I just didn’t have it in me to drive out and back across town to handle it. So I let go of visiting Arbor that day. I made sure I got the right hotel for the next visit in January, so I’ll see them then.
Because I didn’t get to Arbor at 5 am, I decided to try for a late afternoon class at Four Rivers. I’d been meaning to drive out there since I moved back in May, and I always came up with an excuse not to go when a Saturday morning came around. And it would be very difficult for me to get out there for an evening class after work since I’d have to leave quite soon after work and wouldn’t have a chance to eat dinner first. I might try it some time, but for the most part I plan on Saturdays.
The class I ended up attending was a good size for me. Seven participants and the coach. Very low key.
I liked a lot of things about the class. The coaching was good, and my fellow crossfitters were friendly if not effusive. It was different from Arbor, in part because the gym is much larger. The space makes for a different feel. And, of course, I didn’t know anyone, which was almost never the case when I was at Arbor, not for many years now.
I’m glad I didn’t go to another CrossFit box before I was secure in my own abilities and preferences for CrossFit. My very first visit to a non-Arbor box was back in June, out in Nashville, and it was also very different. But I felt less pressure about that visit, because I don’t intend to go back. Four Rivers should be my new CrossFit home.
So I hope that they don’t mind that I’m bringing some Arbor-tude. At Arbor, it’s tradition not to put away one’s equipment until everyone has completed the workout, and we also tend to cheer on those who are still working after we finish. These two things do not seem to be the case, at least not for every class, at Four Rivers. No problem, I’m happy to demonstrate for them. I finished after most others had finished, but there was still one more person working out when I was done. I’d been watching other finishers put their equipment away, but I didn’t. Not until I’d cheered on the last person working to the completion of their set.
I liked the class structure. They had a nicely laid out warm up, and then we moved into ten minutes of bench pressing, attempting to find a 5 rep with a three second descent, one second hold, then explode up, hold one second and repeat. The coach emphasized that we wouldn’t be reaching our “normal” 5 rep max with the tempo. And they also made sure we understood that we were not required to do 5 reps for every weight we tried. It was fine to do 2 or 3 reps at a weight, gauge it, and then move up.
I ended up hitting 75 pounds for my 5 rep with tempo. Not bad considering I haven’t done any regular weightlifting at all since May. Then the workout, a nice little 4 rounds for time involving handstand walks, dumbbell thrusters and strict pull ups. Of course, I scaled the handstand walks down to pike handstand shoulder taps, only did 15 pound dumbbells on the thrusters, and had to do singles for the strict pull ups. But I didn’t need to scale the number of the pull ups! 7 each round, yay!
Overall, it was a very good workout, and a welcoming community. And I’ll be back.